


Pulse

by jellybeanforest



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: Comfort, Dad!Rocket, Despair, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Failure to Communicate, Femdom, Helpless Rocket, Light Bondage, Pegging, Race Against Time, Starmora, Starmora Week 2018, Translator Groot, cunninglingus, shoddy science
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-03
Updated: 2018-09-20
Packaged: 2019-07-06 10:11:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15883941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jellybeanforest/pseuds/jellybeanforest
Summary: After an accident compromises their electromagnetic shield, the Milano is hit with a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) from a nearby star, which short-circuits all their electronics, including internal cybernetics and implanted translators. Only able to communicate through Groot, the Guardians must repair their ship and their bodies before the Milano’s basic life support system fails.For Starmora Week Day 5 - Epiphany





	1. Compromised

**Author's Note:**

> Electromagnetic Pulses (EMPs) from nuclear blasts release high-frequency pulses that can take out the power grid and personal electronics. You can protect personal electronics with a Faraday Cage, basically electromagnetic shielding made from a mesh of conductive material. EMPs are similar to (but not the same as) a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME), which is a low-frequency event from an extraterrestrial source, like a solar flare. Earth-bound electronics are shielded from these extraterrestrial events by Earth’s magnetic field. However, CMEs can take out the power grid due to amplification over long distances through power lines (and have done so such as during the Carrington Event in 1859, just not at a time when electricity and communications were so ubiquitous), but they generally have no effect on small personal electronics as long as they are not plugged in to the power grid. 
> 
> The Guardians are in space, so without shielding or with insufficient shielding, I’m going to say a CME from an extremely large flare will also affect small electronics like cybernetics. This fic is not going to be 100% scientifically accurate, but what do you expect from a franchise with a genetically- and cybernetically-enhanced Raccoon? At any rate, since I couldn’t find out what Gamora’s and Rocket’s cybernetics actually do, I assumed the following: Gamora’s cybernetics allow enhanced strength and repair as well as an oxygen conservation or optimization apparatus to ease reduce breathing during long-term combat. This device also enables limited survival in the void of space as seen in GotG1. Rocket’s cybernetics are skeletal enhancements to allow bipedal movement and enhanced strength and agility as well as a device to enable speech. His intelligence and longevity are largely a result of genetic experimentation and are unaffected by the CME.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Life is pretty good for Gamora. She and Peter have hit their stride as a couple, and her makeshift family is thriving… but then a solar flare robs them of their ability to communicate, Gamora’s strength, and Rocket’s everything.

This is Gamora’s favorite part: Watching Peter fall apart at the seams, her wiry taut body the only thing holding him together.

Like right now.

Gamora can feel Peter’s heartbeat, quick and fluttery as a sprinting jackrabbit. He’s so hot he flushes a patchy scarlet from his face down to his pretty pink nipples and his tacky skin sticks to hers with the rhythmic stretch and pull of her body rocking steady up into his. His knees are bent over her strong arms wrapped around to cradle his back, and when his breath hitches _Ah– Hu– Ha_   and he moans _Ah– Oh– Ohhhh_ , his pupils blown and sweat slicking his hair wet-hot to his forehead, she pushes Peter up against the cold hull of the ship, thrusting in deep then rolling him in small circles up and down the strap-on lodged firmly in his ass. It sends him screaming over the edge, and he cums in white viscous spurts, gooey strings dripping from his chin down to his abdomen and pasting the skin of their chests together in a sticky mess.

She lets him down then, gently laying him on the bed, slowly pulling out her slickened member then unbuckling the harness to drop it on an awaiting towel laid out on the floor for later sanitization. Gamora’s inner thighs glisten with her own lustful excitation as she lies next to him, draping an arm around his chest to tease his softening nipples as she pulls him into a kiss. Not to be outdone, Peter dips his fingers into her wet passage, coating them in her natural lubrication before sliding up over her sensitized clit, rubbing the small nubbin with his thumb. When she gasps, his mouth moves down, kissing a trail over her chin, her breasts, past her belly button towards the rounded cleft between her thighs. He tastes her, salty and sour and oh-so-sweet, lavishing her folds with his broad tongue then slipping the pointed tip over her clit.

As he works, Gamora moans, running her fingers through his curls, always careful not the push his head down too forcefully and inadvertently hurt him. But when her orgasm builds, she can’t trust her hands, so they leave him entirely as she bunches her fists instead in the surrounding sheets until the rising feeling crests in spastic waves of pleasure. Coming down, she forces her thighs open to prevent a too-hard squeeze against his delicate temples.

“I love you,” Peter whispers when he resurfaces from the edge of the bed, dropping to rest beside her.

Gamora holds him then, nuzzling into the hollow of his shoulder, her long tangled hair tickling his nose, her hands rubbing small feather-light circles into his belly. She can feel the ticklish quiver of his muscles as Peter tries to still his reaction, so she smoothes her hands, wider and firmer this time, to soothe his stifled tremors. It is always a work in progress, knowing just how to touch him to elicit the desired response.

“Love you, too,” she replies.

And she does. She loves everything about him, from his soft doe eyes to his nonsensical fixations, but mostly, Gamora loves how much he loves her, far more than she thought should have been possible for someone like her.

Peter yawns, curling over her body, holding her tight until she too falls asleep.

 

…

 

The following day, Rocket is in the kitchen, his nimble fingers holding a soldering gun to fiddle with the internal workings of a small gadget, while Groot sits in the corner playing his handheld gaming device. Gamora enters to retrieve her morning coffee.

“I am Groot,” Groot says grumpily.

“Yeah, I’m mildly surprised she can walk after last night,” Rocket states blandly, still concentrating on the intricate web of wires within his current project.

Gamora stands frozen, coffee pot in hand tipped at an angle just before pouring. At her momentary pause, Rocket elaborates, “My bunk’s next to your bedroom, the walls are thin, and Quill’s not quiet.”

“I am Groot,” Groot concurs, but Gamora hears: _Tell me about it._

“…We really need better sound insulation,” she says, tipping the pot into her mug before placing it back on the burner. She takes a sip, drinking it straight.

“Way ahead of you. This little bugger I’m working on right here? Cone of silence. Turn it on, and it’s immediate soundproofing. Has a radius of about four feet, give or take. Just put it under your bed and presto! The rest of us can sleep easier without being forced to hear Quill boning you.” Having finished the final touches before screwing on the external panel, Rocket holds it out to her. “Here you go.”

Gamora accepts. “Thank you.”

She turns the device over in her hands to examine it. It’s round but smooth and flat on top with an easy user interface: a single on/off switch on the side. It is simple enough for any Quill-shaped idiot to operate. Rocket is considerate like that.

He crosses his arms. “Thank me by activating it. Every time. Think of it as the exact opposite of those condoms you clearly don’t use.”

Startled, Gamora plays dumb. “What are you talk– “

“Quill no longer buys ‘em in bulk, and I haven’t heard the crinkling of a wrapper in a long time,” Rocket interrupts her. He taps one ear. “Sometimes, having perfect hearing is a curse.”

No use denying it. “I really didn’t need the details.”

“I am Groot.” _How do you think we feel?_

“Well, neither do the rest of us, so… there’s a switch on the side. The green light next to it indicates it’s working,” Rocket instructs, ignoring Groot.

“Hey guys,” Peter greets the trio as he strides across the room towards the coffee pot, a noticeable stiffness in his gait.

Rocket falls silent as he takes in Peter’s telltale stilted walk, horrible realization dawning on him. He turns to Groot, who is watching the man as well, having put aside his game for once at the worst possible moment. The disturbed expression alighting his face indicates he’s thinking exactly the same thing. Lovely.

Oblivious, Peter glances at the mechanical disk in Gamora’s hands. “What’s that?”

Rocket closes his eyes and palms the side of his face, his fingers massaging his temple in exasperation. “…I could have lived my entire life without that mental image and been perfectly happy,” he mumbles.

“I am Groot.” _Well fuck, you learn something new every day._

“Hey. Language!”

Later, after leaving Peter to his five-creams-seven-sugars abomination passing as coffee, Gamora makes her way to the cargo hold where the Guardians have set aside space for a makeshift gym to allow for sparring and basic exercise.

Drax and Mantis are already inside. Gamora hopes they hadn’t heard her and Peter’s late-night indiscretions, but the chances of that are slim. As Rocket had so blithely pointed out, the Milano is small and Peter could be quite the screamer. Lucky for her, the two seem to be otherwise preoccupied.

“If someone grasps your arm, flatten your hand and twist it like so to push against their wrist. They’ll let go, and then you run and find one of us to properly remove their spine,” Drax instructs Mantis, grabbing her forearm midway to her elbow and talking her through the defensive countermeasures.

It had been over two years since Mantis had become a member of the Guardians, and her face still made Drax’s stomach turn. However, he considers himself too much of a gentleman to point it out… much. She truly can’t help her unfortunate physical appearance, Drax supposes. Besides, it’s what’s on the inside that counts, specifically what unscrupulous organ harvesters could mine from the inside of her scrawny body.

“Do you think I will be able to remove spines one day?” She asks brightly, her large dark eyes brimming with hope.

“No,” Drax states plainly, having no qualms squashing her delightfully murderous aspirations. “You’re small and weak, but fear not, you can run faster than someone with more bulk and strength.”

“I could always make them sleep,” Mantis suggests, “then remove their spines at my own pace.”

Drax sighs. The mark of a good spine removal is speed. Everyone knows that. Besides–

“That may not always work. You could run into a more powerful empath or one wearing protective armor or even a soulless android with no substance at all for you to manipulate. I will now show you how to defend yourself if you are grabbed from behind, but first, I have to secure my genitals in a protective casing.”

With that, Drax steps away to prepare behind a modesty screen just as Gamora makes her entrance.

Mantis perks up. “Good morning, Gamora! Drax is teaching me how to break away from perverts and buggy chasers. Want to join?”

“That’s alright, Mantis,” she responds, lifting a sizeable medicine ball and dialing the weight up to maximum, gravitationally altering it to be much heavier than its size would suggest.

“Gamora is not in need of these lessons,” Drax says from behind the screen where Gamora can hear the rustle of fabric as he adjusts his pants. “She can rip a man in twain with her bare hands. You, on the other hand, will have to resort to more underhanded methods to defend yourself.”

Gamora rolls her eyes. “Don’t listen to him. Nothing done in self-defense is underhanded,” she tells Mantis.

“I am merely stating a fact that these tactics are of questionable ethics in a fight between equal combatants. However, an honorable opponent wouldn’t attempt to best one so pathetic as Mantis. Therefore, it is acceptable for me to teach that which is normally beneath me,” Drax says, emerging into view, his groin conspicuously padded, inadvertently and rather obscenely enlarging his dick. “Mantis, Gamora is correct. There is no shame in self-defense, no matter how low you have to hit your opponent.” His approach is more of a waddle, encumbered by excessive pelvic cushioning.

Gamora nearly drops her medicine ball at the ridiculous spectacle. She snorts as she struggles to keep a straight face, her smile but a whisper at the corner of her mouth.

Mistaking her stare of incredulity and suppressed laughter for a leer and barely-restrained sexual interest, Drax tut-tuts, “I am flattered, Gamora, but Quill is a good friend of mine.”

That releases the flood gates. Gamora laughs then, openly and full, in a way she only recently allowed herself to do in the presence of her makeshift family.

Mantis awkwardly laughs in solidarity with Gamora. Though her sense of humor is improving, she doesn’t quite understand the joke, but it must have been a good one to elicit such a response from the former assassin.

Overall, it had been an ordinary, peaceful morning…

Which should have been Gamora’s first clue that everything was about to go horribly wrong.

It had started with a mission, a simple retrieval of a black box from a recently crashed ship located in a junker graveyard, a dense swirling trash heap of decommissioned, defunct spacecraft orbiting a small yellow star. In a few millennia, the entire ring may coalesce into a single compact planet composed entirely of metal scrap and tetanus, but for now, it was a gold mine for scavengers wanting parts on the cheap, if they were crazy or desperate enough to traverse the uncharted, ever-changing landscape between the colliding debris.

After obtaining and securing their find, Peter had thought it the perfect time to teach Groot how to maneuver his way around obstacles during flight. He’d learned to do the same at the tender age of 10, and Groot was at least 12 by Floral Colossus standards.

It went about as well as one would expect. With Peter’s instruction, Groot had been doing okay outside of the odd ship part peppering the sides of the Milano when he had accidentally clipped a large detached fin.

The radio crackles to life as Rocket comms the cockpit. “Hey Quill, you need me to go up there and re-school you on how to fly?”

“No, we’re doing amazing up here, thank you very much,” Peter replies, patting Groot’s shoulder to reassure the boy of his confidence in his flying ability despite the hiccup.

“…We?” Rocket repeats.

Peter internally berates himself for the slip-up before answering. “Skrriiiiish, Chtreeetch, Rocket, Shkreeee… breaking up… Shkriiiiiiiiiish,” he mimics transmission problems, abruptly shutting off the comm.

Rocket is in the cockpit a minute later, not that Quill had expected any different considering the size of the Milano.

“What the fuck, Quill!” Rocket says, edging Groot off the copilot seat before taking over. “He’s not old enough to fly through a minefield yet!”

Peter diverts control of the ship to his own console. “He’s older than I was when I flew the getaway M-ship to escape Nova Corp!”

“We’re Guardians, not Ravagers!” Rocket argues, flipping it back to his side.

Peter feels insulted as he angrily wrests control back once again. “What’s that supposed to–“

Just then, a large chunk of a much-larger vessel comes barreling into the side of their ship, crunching into the hull and sending them spinning out. Still having flight control from the abrupt end of their argument, Peter narrowly manages to escape becoming a permanent resident of the graveyard, executing a series of rolls, flips, and near misses to exit the orbital ring of debris.

When it’s over, Gamora stomps into the cockpit, her eyes wide and long hair a mess. “What the hell was that?” Caught squabbling over piloting rights, Gamora huffs, “Really, Rocket? I thought we already worked out a system. It’s Peter’s turn, and Peter, is it really worth killing us all over?” She had expected better of them both after all this time.

“That’s not the problem!” Rocket protests, but before he can elaborate on how everything is Quill’s fault as usual, a harried Drax and discombobulated Mantis enter as well.

“Are we under attack?” Mantis asks, strapping into her seat.

“Surely not. The hoarders of Schorre were wiped out when their colony collapsed under the weight of old nanochips and rusted bimotors, and the rest were finished off by an infestation of orloni infected with hemorrhagic rabies,” Drax replies. “I did the research myself.”

“Yeah, well we were struck with a plague of idiocy, and Quill is patient zero!” Rocket snaps. “He let Groot take the wheel.”

Drax sucks in a breath. “For shame, Quill.”

“I am Groot.” _I was doing just fine until you interfered._

Rocket turns on his young ward. “You hit something large enough to rattle the ship!”

“I am Groot!” _That fin came out of nowhere!_

“Well, you’re grounded until further notice! How d’you like that?”

“Enough, you two! Rocket, it wasn’t Groot’s fault,” Gamora interjects, annoyance setting in now that they are out of immediate danger. “It was obviously Peter’s.”

“My fault?” Peter says, indignant. “If Rocket hadn’t gotten his panties in a twist, Groot would have made it out okay.”

“You should have discussed this with the rest of us before you let Groot fly through something as dangerous as a graveyard. We’re a team, Peter. You should have taken that into consideration before making decisions that affect all of us,” Gamora points out. Sometimes, Peter acted more like a child than their team’s actual child.

Peter appears sufficiently cowed by Gamora’s criticism. “It seemed like a good idea at the time,” he grumbles.

Rocket fastens a spare aero-rig to his suit. “Well, I’m going to go out and take a look at the damage this idiot did to the ship,” he says, pointing at Peter before tipping his head to indicate a convex dent in the hull. “That inward bulge is bad news. That last hit could have torn a hole in the mesh insulation.”

“So, it might get a bit chilly in here,” Drax comments. “I refuse to wear a sweater.” Chaffed nipples are the worst.

“No, you complete moron! I’m talking about the mesh layers built into the hull. That’s our electromagnetic shielding. If we get hit with a pulse out here, it’s lights out. Literally.”

“Oh come on. What are the chances of that happening?” Peter asks, tempting fate.

Later, Gamora would contemplate the nature of her luck. There had been a fifty-fifty chance of her surviving childhood when Thanos had arrived with a crackpot idea to rescue her civilization from starvation by murdering half the population at random. The chances of her becoming his daughter were significantly less than that. He had taken only a single child from every world he had “saved,” adding them one-by-one to his family of assassins based on little more than a whim, and yet it was she, out of all the children of the Zehoberi homeworld, who was chosen. So, in response to Peter’s off-handed question, the sensible answer is chances are infinitesimal that a large-enough solar flare would be positioned in such a way to send an electromagnetic pulse hurtling towards their small ship in the brief span of time between the damage to their shielding and Rocket’s repair. Extremely improbable. Statistically negligible, really. Yet, the universe had never been kind to Gamora, no matter how slim the odds of an adverse event occurring.

It wasn’t any different today.

Rocket had barely taken three steps before he drops to the ground in spasms.

Mantis, Drax, and Peter all simultaneously bend in a crouch, as they clutch and rub their right ears. However, they recover relatively quickly from the short burst.

Gamora is not so lucky. Fiery pain rips through her ear canal, spreading across her face and along her bones from the ribs outward down her limbs. She tries to scream but chokes instead, her breath catching in a hard lump as her lungs seize up. For a terrifying moment, she can’t breathe. She falls to her knees, desperately massaging her throat with hands stiffened into open claws, the tendons tight to near-snapping, hoping to loosen the constricted muscles around her air passage. _This is the end,_ she doesn’t think, too preoccupied with dying to form coherent thoughts.

Suddenly, Peter is there as well, holding her spastic, clammy body. His wild eyes are dark, the pupils so large they seem barely rimmed in familiar green, and he’s shouting something she’s too delirious to process properly. Her lungs release, and Gamora breathes in shallow gasps of air as she settles limp in his embrace. Her vision fails. The crisp lines of his figure fading to a fuzzy grey, he is the last thing Gamora knows for a while.

When she wakes, she’s laid out on their bed with Rocket tucked in beside her and the others gathered around, their attention seemingly focused on Groot.

She attempts to sit up but groans when her body still feels stiff and weak in ways she hasn’t experienced since her early days under Thanos. Peter is at her side immediately, helping her rise to a seated position.

“Hegt se dir goot? Wer bahen uis wornin mun chid machtge,” he says, sincere and full of worry. The words are clunky and completely incomprehensible to Gamora, his dialect a stumble and roll with a rather ugly timbre. Gamora taps the space behind her ear where her implanted translator had always been.

“Cong ei heu am,” Mantis replies in a lyrical stream of equally incomprehensible words that rise and fall with each syllable. It’s oddly pleasant, like the chittering of cicadas.

“Kanke chto porsk hod?” Drax’s roll of words is a monotonous rumble, flat and even.

“I am Groot.” _Everyone shut up. You’re talking too fast._

At least Gamora can understand Groot, so it is unlikely that the speech centers of her brain have been compromised.

Drax and Mantis obey immediately.

“Sab hir wes siertist,” Peter says softly to Groot.

“I am Groot.” _Our electromagnetic shield failed, and a solar flare took out all our electronics._ “I am Groot.” _You and Rocket went down, and everyone’s translator is fried. I’m the only one anyone can understand._

“You said all our electronics? Doesn’t that include the Milano itself? How are we even still alive?” Gamora manages, slouched forward in residual weakness. Her head is still pounding and her body aches, the result of all her cybernetics shorting out in a sharp pulse of electromagnetic energy.

“I am Groot.” _Backup life support system had separate shielding and was unaffected._ “I am Groot.” _But the main thrusters and drives are out. We’re sitting ducks until Rocket wakes up and fixes it, if it can be fixed at all._

“How much time do we have?” Gamora asks, practical as always.

“I am Groot.” _How the fuck should I know?_

At Peter’s indignant protestations, which Gamora could infer as condemnation of Groot’s language and perceived rudeness, Groot bites back. “I am Groot!” _Yeah? Well, when is the appropriate time? I think the situation fucking calls for it!_

Rocket starts to stir, hissing as he curls up into a ball, his normally-motionless tail snaking around to cover his lower legs.

Groot lightly touches his shoulder. “I am Groot?” _Hey Rocket, you okay?_

Rocket’s spine curves as he sits up, hunched over in a seated position, his tiny paws rubbing his eyes, but when he opens his mouth, the only thing that comes out are small guttural trills. Clearly distressed, he grabs his throat, the animalistic sounds growing in volume to Groot’s confusion.

“I am Groot!” _Rocket? Slow down I can’t understand you. Hey Rocket?... Rocket! Dad!_ Groot says, as he grasps Rocket’s arms to steady him. Rocket continues his barrage of high whistling trills, his panic rising with every failed syllable, as he beats his tiny fist against upper chest and tries to cough.

“Chto on got vort?” Drax asks, perplexed, his brow knitting together.

“I am… Groot.” _I don’t know… I can’t understand a word he’s saying._

Rocket stops abruptly to peer at Groot. His face shifting from fearful to crestfallen, he starts to cry. He covers his eyes with tiny paws as big fat tears run down his face. When Drax tries to comfort him, resting a hand from his head then sliding it down his back, Rocket immediately snaps his jaws at his retreating fingers then burrows into the blankets to hide away from the others.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do I think Peter is a “top”? Probably, but not all the time and not in this fic in particular for story reasons. All I’m saying is that Peter likes strong women, Gamora has canonically pegged Tony Stark in the comics, and it was clearly her idea. So… make of that what you will.
> 
> I also have a confession to make. I am not good at conlang, and I wasn’t going to even attempt to make up three languages, so these are bastardized versions of real languages where I purposely misspelled some words, swapped some consonants, and split some words. In the case of one of the languages I can sort of read, I switched around the forms of address as well.


	2. Dance with Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter makes the best of a bad situation.

Though stripped of speech and his bipedal posture, it is immediately clear Rocket had retained his formidable intelligence in the aftermath of the pulse and understood Groot even if Groot could not comprehend him. After his initial frantic attempts, Rocket abruptly stopped trying to speak and soundlessly wrote answers to Groot’s questions in thick black pen on paper.

They had three days, maybe four, if they turn down the heat to basal levels to prevent hypothermia and instead diverted the saved power to the oxygen converter.

Rocket tries to walk, ever so slowly, towards the generator to carry out the needed alterations. His original species, that Quill had once determined to be similar to a type of crafty scavenging vermin on Terra, was capable of standing on hind-legs but not while walking at any speed. Rocket snarls at the Guardians, waving one paw in a tight circular motion. Gamora understands his predicament immediately, grabbing Peter by the shoulder to spin him around, while Groot does the same to Mantis and Drax on either side of him. Sufficiently satisfied they aren’t watching, Rocket scampers forward on all fours towards the only working generator. They don’t follow until they hear the clang of a screwdriver opening the fine metal mesh encasing the Milano’s basic life support system.

Rocket is no animal, and it clearly pained him to be reduced to moving and sounding like one.

 

* * *

 

Presently, the Milano drifts across space towards an unknown destination curving away from the junkyard, its listing motion a result of residual momentum from before it was struck helpless by a large solar flare. Hurtling towards an uncertain future in a crippled ship, the Milano’s unlucky inhabitants can only wait for salvation from their similarly-compromised lone engineer.

But for now, it’s bone-cold.

Gamora exhales warm into her clenched fists, thawing her chilled fingers. It has been hours since Rocket had modified the life support system, and he had spent the time since fiercely scrawling algorithms and manual calculations over increasingly-crowded reams of paper, periodically scratching out his work and starting over.

Mantis passes Gamora a ration bar. “Tri khay cong?”

“I am Groot.” _About as well as can be expected, considering we’re all going to die in this floating tin can._

“Krundel. Uis wird se goot henge,” Peter states firmly. He sidles up to Gamora, throwing an arm around her shoulder in an attempt to comfort her as well as share his body heat.

“I AM Groot.” _You can’t know that. The computers are down, and Rocket has been working out a solution BY HAND for hours. There’s no way it’s going to work._

“Noche tim serdie lungeinstel,” Peter quips.

Groot rolls his eyes. “I am Groot!” _What does my attitude have to do with anything?_

“Groot, it might be wise to keep up our spirits. We’re not dead yet.” Gamora chimes in, having inferred the gist of their conversation.

“i am groot.” ‘ _Yet’ being the operative word._

Peter looks around at the assembled Guardians. Taking notice of their forlorn expressions, he abruptly stands. “Ey Leut, werim bekommen wer niche en bischten muske?” He asks, sounding implausibly chipper despite the dismal aura exuded by present company.

“I am Groot.” _What music? The Zune was fried in the flare, same as everything else._

Undeterred, Peter settles back down next to Gamora and starts to hum an old favorite, swaying in his seat to the rhythm. They all recognize it immediately. Peter smiles at Gamora’s stony expression, rubbing her upper arm, encouraging her to join him in his a cappella musical rendition of an old stand-by.

“…O-o-h Child – Things’ll get brighter,” she sings along quietly.

When Mantis adds her own lyrical dialect to the growing choir, Peter stands once again, attempting to haul Gamora up as well to dance. She resists, having always hated being the center of attention.

“Zant tim mir,” he pleads earnestly, so she joins him in a simple four-step. If they are going to die anyway, it wouldn’t hurt to humor the man she loved one last time.

As he hums out the chorus, Peter pulls Mantis into the fray as well then leaves the two of them to dance together while he tries to proposition Drax to join him. Crossing his arms, Drax waves him off, making it clear that even in dire circumstances, Drax the Destroyer does not dance. So Peter spins away towards a pessimistic Groot, dragging him up into his orbit, trying to teach the youth his own signature dance moves.

“Das wird farleine beckindrune,” he tells him as he kicks high then dips low.

“I am Groot.” _I highly doubt women are impressed with those moves._ Groot remarks skeptically. Turning towards the only women onboard, he loudly solicits their opinion, “I am Groot?” _Gamora, Mantis, does that do anything for you?_ He indicates the dancing buffoon wriggling about in front of him with a crooked thumb.

Both women shake their heads in the negative.

“Zalkiy,” Drax comments from the sidelines.

“Ud west ud das wilst,” Peter declares, confidence overflowing as he throws in some pelvic waves, eyes locked on Gamora. Gamora returns his attentions with a blank stare.

Groot exhales audibly, rolling his eyes in exasperation. “I am Groot.” _No one wants any of that, not even Gamora, and you two are boning._

Peter simply shrugs, continuing his slightly-embarrassing, horribly-outdated dance routine.

Over the next half-hour, he proceeds to lead the group in a musical chorus of his most-played Terran songs, ending with a congo line snaking around the still-seated Drax, until he too relents and lends his voice to the cacophony of disjointed words, each singing in tune with their own language.

Later, Gamora would appreciate that Peter’s ridiculous diversion allowed the Guardians a brief respite from contemplating whether they were destined to die, quietly suffocating inside their home turned communal coffin.

But for now, they had to rest.

After listening to feedback from each member, Groot addresses the team. “I am Groot.” _Okay, Drax suggests we have the stronger members of our team pair off with a weaker one during each shift, so if we are boarded by a scavenger vessel, we won’t be completely defenseless and might be able to commandeer their functional ship._

“I am Groot.” _He further suggests that Peter, as ‘the weakest and most pathetic’ of our bunch, takes the first rest shift with Gamora._

Peter starts to protest his designated status as “weakest Guardian” when Gamora hooks an elbow around his arm to lead him towards their room.

“Which one of us is weakest is unimportant,” she explains, despite the fact that he can’t understand her. “Shifts are the best solution.”

Groot calls out after them. “I am Groot!” _She says it doesn’t matter how useless you are, she’s tired and thinks Drax is 100% correct._

“That’s not what I said,” Gamora shouts back, her tone unmistakably debunking Groot’s translation to all assembled persons.

Peter mopes, “Noche deder can so stark sin wes hir zwe.”

“I am Groot!” _Try to keep it down, you two!_

Once inside their quarters, Peter stands behind Gamora to help remove her jacket. She shivers in the frigid temperatures until Peter runs his hands up and down her upper arms, generating heat.

“Ib can dicht aftwurmmen,” he whispers, embracing her close from behind as he plants a series of kisses across the exposed plane of her shoulder.

“Really?” Gamora says incredulously, turning to face him. “Now? You want to have sex right now? Do you really think this is the time?”

Sensing her hesitation, Peter simply replies, “Est kal.” He hunches over, crossing his arms to rub his own shoulders, feigning shivering while affecting an exaggerated parody of his most miserable face.

 _Of course he does,_ Gamora thinks. She stands up on tip toes to kiss him then steps back when he eagerly surges forward in response. “But be quiet,” she says, placing her straightened index finger vertically over his closed lips to ensure he gets the message.

Peter happily shakes his head in the affirmative, grinning as he pantomimes zipping up his lips and throwing away the key. He’ll stay quiet, if that’s what it takes.

Gamora leans up to capture his kiss yet again. She slips her hands around his back as their tongues tangle together, warm and wet. Peter steps backwards, leading her towards the bed before sitting down, gathering her up in his lap. With a coy smile, she pushes him onto his back and unzips his pants while he lifts up his torso slightly to pull his shirt up and over his head before slipping his hands under her shirt. Peter’s mouth latches on to one breast as he teases the other nipple into a hardened tip. Gamora moans as she reaches behind herself to slowly stroke his dick before they set about removing the rest of their clothes. They’re both nude when Gamora straps on the harness and tries to physically lift him up clean off the bed and onto her lap, intending to tease his ass on the tip of her strap-on.

She can’t.

She strains to raise him higher, but try as she might, she doesn’t manage to lift him more than half an inch, and the level of effort needed to accomplish even that much is unsustainable.

Peter has always been much larger and heavier than her, but it has never been a problem before. She had always been able to manhandle him with relative ease, utilizing little more effort than it took for Peter to pick up Rocket.

“Hegt se dir goot?” He asks, naked concern in his soft green eyes.

Gamora attempts to raise him up yet again, but he’s simply much too heavy for her. Suddenly, she stops, withdrawing from him completely to stare at her shaking hands. The cybernetics. Her strength…

She’s six years old all over again, bruised and beaten after her first test. _I’ll do better,_ she had begged. _You will,_ Thanos had promised before her first (and last) cybernetic enhancement surgery. It feels like a lifetime ago when she had been small and so very vulnerable.

Soft.

_Weak._

Since then, Gamora had relied on her own abilities to pull her through, to protect her when no one else would, but now–

Gamora can’t breathe.

Peter whispers assurances she can’t understand. He’s smoothing his hands in circles against her back in what he thinks is a comforting touch.

Gamora needs to leave. She tries to crawl backwards off the bed and away from their shared room, away from Peter, but as she slips from his fingers, his hand grasps her retreating forearm. She tries to shake it loose, but to her rising alarm, she finds she can’t shrug him off so easily.

She tamps down the panic bubbling up from her stomach to her throat, trying to stay calm. This is Peter, after all. Only Peter. He would never hurt her.

“Let me go,” she says with flat affect, testing his firm grip with a tentative shake.

“Est Onurden,” he says desperately, fingers still clutching her arm.

“Peter…” She tries again. When he doesn’t relent, still spouting off his incomprehensible gibberish, she can’t take it anymore.

“I said LET GO!” She yells, but before he can react to her outburst, she flattens the palm of her trapped limb, twisting it to press hard against his wrist and break his hold while simultaneously bringing the flat of her other hand across his cheek with as much power as she can muster, whipping his head to one side.

Peter retreats then, scrambling to the head of the bed as far as he can to get away from Gamora. There’s shock, confusion, and more than a small measure of hurt in his gaze as he cradles his cheek while watching her quickly dress and exit their room.

Gamora rushes past Rocket and the other Guardians. Returning to the cockpit, she curls deep into her chair, breathing deep and slow to calm herself.

There’s muffled commotion behind her before she hears the rustling of wooden branches indicating Groot’s approach. “I… am Groot.” _Are you… okay?_

She doesn’t look at him, choosing instead to gaze out the large windshield at the stars. “I’m fine, Groot.”

“I am Groot.” _You don’t look fine. Did something happen?_

“It’s nothing. I just want to sit here for a little bit,” Gamora tries to reassure him.

“I am Groot.” _Okay, but if you need us for anything…_

She considers his offer. “Actually… Would it be okay if we switch shifts?”

 

* * *

 

Gamora stays alert, watching the dark expanse of space outside the Milano’s window and shivering slightly through first shift. Despite her best efforts, she dozes off into a light sleep towards the end, still slouched into her chair.

When Mantis stops by briefly to drape a blanket over her body at the official start of Gamora’s sleep shift, she wakes abruptly, hand grasping the knife hidden at her hip. The little bug goes still and her dark eyes large as saucers at the sight of the glimmering blade held to her throat before Gamora can even register her presence. Upon recognizing Mantis, Gamora palms the knife, withdrawing it with an apologetic crinkle of her eyes. Mantis leaves quickly with a stuttering chitter that remains indecipherable to Gamora.

She shifts deeper into her chair, restless. She doesn’t know how much time has passed when Rocket scurries quickly over to curl up in his own copilot’s chair at the front, separate from the others and hidden from Gamora. Gamora doesn’t comment nor does she approach him, choosing instead to leave him to deal with his own lost abilities alone as he so clearly desires… as she herself would want.

Besides, she has her own troubles.

In eight short hours, she will have to face Peter. She has no idea what she will say.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you who are wondering, Yes, Gamora is aware after Chapter 1 that the cybernetics responsible for her enhanced strength are gone. However, because she got them so young and hasn't been around adult Zehoberis since childhoood, she's unaware of how weak she actually is without them. Yeah, she knows she likely can't wield a half-ton detached spacecraft gun like she did in her fight with Nebula in GotG2, but Peter is a measly 200 pounds, tops. She figures surely she can handle that only to find out that she actually can't. She's far weaker without her cybernetics than she had anticipated, and that's a scary proposition for someone with her upbringing.


	3. Trust

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gamora and Peter discuss the nature of trust. Meanwhile, Rocket’s plan might just kill everyone, but it’s their best chance for survival.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was getting very long, so I split it yet again. The conclusion should be up by the end of the week.

“I’m not ready to go out there,” Gamora says to the back of Rocket’s chair at the end of their rest shift. She heaves herself up and shakes out the stiffness in her joints, cracking her neck to relieve the ache, a result of an uncomfortably upright slumber. However, instead of returning to the galley where Peter is likely waiting for her to emerge, she steps forward and slides gracefully into the pilot seat next to Rocket, slouching forward as she places her boot on the edge of the seat to rest elbow on bended knee. She palms her face in resignation.

“I don’t know what I’m going to tell him,” she says, turning to Rocket. “He wouldn’t understand anyway, even if the translators hadn’t shorted out. My cybernetics have been a part of me for so long. They kept me safe, and now…”

Rocket stares back at her, clearly irritated she had intruded on his personal space.

“Yeah, you’re right. You have it the worst of all of us, so you’re the last person I should be complaining to,” she admits with a sigh. She leans back to reach into her pocket and pull out the ration bar Mantis had given her earlier.

“Here,” she offers it to Rocket.

When he doesn’t move to accept it, she unwraps the top half, the crisp crinkle the only sound breaking up the silence between them.

She holds it out yet again. “Go on, Rocket. Take it. You’ve been working harder than all of us trying to figure this out, and I haven’t seen you eat all day. I’m sure you’re hungry.”

After another quiet moment of rejection, Gamora tries again.

“Okay, fine. How about we split?” She breaks off a piece for herself before passing the rest to Rocket. She chews her half and doesn’t even turn to face him when she hears the subtle rustle of the split wrapper as he extracts the bar for a nibble. The limitless expanse of the void lies out ahead of them, cold and dark, speckled with countless stars and plumes of gaseous clouds. It is beautiful despite its terrifying scale.

Each nestled in their own thoughts, Gamora and Rocket sit silently side by side, sharing a meal, like comrades.

 

* * *

 

Peter and Groot are in the common area when Gamora enters soon after Rocket. She stands apart from them, uncertain how to address the metaphorical bilgesnipe in the room.

Unfortunately, Peter gives her precious little time to adjust to his presence when he approaches her first, leading Groot forward as well with a hand pushing against the small of his back.

“Wer muss neder,” he begins.

“I am Groot.” _He wants to talk to you._ Groot translates reluctantly.

“Neder,” Peter repeats.

“I am Groot.” _Needs to talk to you. I think we have different definitions of that word, but whatever man._

Crossing her arms, Gamora exhales slowly. “Right now? Can’t we talk about this after?” Her eyes dart to Groot meaningfully. “Alone.”

“I am Groot.” _She wants to talk about whatever is going on between you two later, without me present, which is a great idea. Excellent, really._

Peter looks directly at Gamora. “Has tu stag var mir?” He asks, his voice low, serious.

“I am Groot.” _That’s the dumbest question I’ve ever heard. Of course she’s not scared of you._ Groot rolls his eyes, choosing to directly address Peter instead of relaying his message to Gamora.

However, when Gamora doesn’t scoff at the clearly ridiculous notion, Groot wonders whether Peter might be on to something. “I am Groot.” _You know what? I think I have to… use the little tree’s room. For like… an hour. I think the solar flare fucked up my digestion something awful._

Groot tries to step around Peter to extricate himself from the situation. “I am Groot.” _I think I’ll just get around you…_

Peter holds out an arm, preventing the boy’s premature exit. “Kom chon krundel. Ib rauch dict, mu mir heir uz fenel,” he wheedles.

“I am Groot.” _I’d like to help, but I really don’t want to get involved in whatever this is._

“Peter, you aren’t being fair to Groot,” Gamora says, pushing his arm down so Groot can bypass him. Peter lets it drop at the light pressure, wary of making the same mistake again.

He’s about to say something when their attention is diverted towards the sound of a small boxy device skittering across the floor, having slid out from where Rocket sits in the corner, furiously scrawling black pen across paper. It comes to a rest next to Peter’s foot.

“What’s this thing?” Peter asks, toeing the apparatus with his boot.

“Peter, I can understand you now,” Gamora says, surprised. Peter looks up as well, having likewise understood her.

Rocket holds up a sign where he had written, “The black box from that last junker job had its own electromagnetic shielding. I extracted the recorder and used it to create a makeshift external translator.” He holds up another sign. “You’re welcome. Now leave Groot alone.” Rocket had double-underlined the last word for emphasis.

With Peter distracted, Groot successfully sidesteps him, making his way across the room to stand near Rocket. “I am GROOT.” _Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU._

“That’s awesome, man!” Peter exclaims enthusiastically, “Real good thinking there. Wait… Why are you still writing?”

Rocket is quiet, the only sound the squeak of his pen as he slowly writes some words, crosses it out, then tries again. When complete, he stares at the paper for a long moment before slowly raising it to cover his face. “It don’t work on me.”

“i am groot.” _We’ll fix you. Promise._ Groot says softly, massaging Rocket’s shoulder to comfort him.

 

* * *

 

Ten minutes later, Peter closes the door to their room. He palms the nonfunctional deadlock out of habit, then turns to face Gamora.

“Okay, we’re alone now. Let’s talk, okay?”

Gamora would prefer not to. In fact, she’d like to postpone this uncomfortable conversation indefinitely, preferably until one or both of them are dead in approximately 2-3 days, but the way he says it makes her feel like she can’t refuse. “…Alright.”

Peter laces his fingers together, tapping the thumbs together nervously. He sucks in a breath. “What happened earlier? You sort of freaked out on me, like you were scared of something–”

“I wasn’t scared.”

Peter persists. “Was it something I did, or…”

“I _wasn’t_ scared,” Gamora repeats.

Peter is quiet then, contemplative, but Gamora’s futile hope that he will drop the issue is short-lived when he decides to take a more direct tact.

“You know… I don’t care if you can’t pick me up anymore. It was never just about the sex,” he says, his tone sympathetic. It doesn’t make Gamora feel any better. “We can go back to doing it the old-fashioned way. I’m flexible in more ways than one.” He waggles his eyebrows suggestively.

Gamora sighs. “Peter. It’s not about the sex either.”

“Then can you tell me what it is about?” He implores her. “Because I’ve been thinking about this for the past sixteen hours, and I really thought I was on to something there.”

“It’s just… I’m not strong enough anymore. I couldn’t lift you up, and when you held onto me, I couldn’t get you to let go,” she finally confesses, eyes downturned as she hunches over, her arms defensively crossed over her chest.

“So, you ARE scared of me,” Peter says, taking a step back to grant her more space.

_That’s_ what he got out of her admission?

She curls further into herself, still unable to meet his eyes. “It’s not that simple. It’s just… Peter, you know how I grew up. Thanos always punished us when we were too weak, when we broke during his… lessons. He molded us into steel but because he always tested us against each other as we improved, none of us were ever truly safe.”

“You’re safe here with us, with me.” Peter moves in to comfort her, hands rubbing her upper arms sliding behind to encircle her back.

He’s much too close.

And he’s blocking the only exit.

“That’s not the point. I just haven’t been this weak for a long time, and it’s…” she shudders, slipping from his embrace. “You can’t know what it’s like.”

“To be the weak one? Yeah Gamora, you’re right. I’ve never been in that situation before, so I couldn’t possibly understand what that’s like,” he replies dryly. “Not even once.”

“…That’s not what I meant.”

“I thought it didn’t matter which one of us is stronger, because we’re a team, all of us, and we face challenges together. If one of us stumbles, the others are there to pick them up. We have each other’s backs… don’t we?”

“Of course we do,” Gamora confirms.

Peter runs his fingers through his hair in confusion. “Then what’s the problem?”

“It has nothing to do with you specifically. It’s just… I’ve always had to be the strongest person in the room to be acceptable, to prove that I deserve to survive every day. Thanos has only had to enhance me once. Just once. Do you know how hard I had to train, what I had to do, to win against continually upgraded opponents? I couldn’t afford to trust anyone, especially if I wasn’t sure whether I could beat them in hand-to-hand combat,” Gamora explains.

It never leaves you, that sort of insecurity, is what she wants to tell him.

“Does that make sense?” She asks instead.

“Yeah. That’s perfectly clear. Just… glad to know you only trust me as far as you can throw me,” Peter responds, his voice laced with hurt Gamora interprets as anger.

She steps back reflexively, out of striking distance.

Peter looks defeated and suddenly every bit as tired as his over 24 hours of wakefulness would merit. The last thing he wants is for Gamora to feel that way around him.

“You know what? Maybe it’s just best we talk about this after you get your cybernetics fixed, so you can stop looking at me like that, like I’m going to attack you or something,” he says, purposely softening his voice to a nonthreatening register. Ever so slowly, Peter grabs the translator from their bed then backs up and out of the room.

Gamora watches him leave, relief washing over her before guilt sets in at her initial reaction. She has never wanted to hurt him, doesn’t ever want to be relieved at his absence, and yet…

And yet–

 

* * *

 

When Drax and Mantis return from their rest break, Gamora and Peter are on opposite sides of the room, not speaking to each other. Groot had opted to help Rocket to avoid the charged atmosphere between the two.

“Quill must have done something really stupid this time, which is impressive considering he lacks the faculties to make himself understood to Gamora,” Drax comments blithely, mostly to himself.

“Hey! Why do you always assume I’m the one at fault?” Peter protests loudly from his seat at the table.

Drax is floored. “Bravo, Quill. You have somehow managed to master my native tongue in such a limited time frame. You are a marvel, Peter Quill, a true idiot savant of our times.”

“Drax, I can understand you, too,” Mantis adds, perplexed.

He turns to his companion in surprise before commending her. “It seems you have managed the same feat as well, Mantis. Will wonders never cease? Though I am embarrassed to say I have not put in the same effort to return the favor.”

Peter pinches the bridge of his nose, exhaling slowly before continuing, “No, you idiot! Rocket hooked us up with an external translator so we can actually talk to each other. How could we have possibly learned your language in two days?”

“That’s why I found it so impressive,” Drax says flatly, his opinion of Peter returning to its low baseline state. “I clearly overestimated your limited intelligence. My apologies. It won’t happen again.”

“…Right,” Peter replies, arms limp to his sides as he reclines in his chair, dropping his head back to stare at the ceiling.

Mantis hesitates before asking, “So… if Rocket was able to get the translator working, did he also manage to fix the ship?”

“Not yet,” Gamora replies. “We got lucky when he was able to reconstruct a translator from the black box we picked up, but the Milano is a much bigger fix.”

Unnoticed by the others, Rocket’s ears perk up at the suggestion. He hastily rifles through his papers to find the schematics of the Milano, furiously making further alterations and notes in the margins.

“So, we’re still dead?” Drax replies.

“Not necessarily,” Peter interjects. “Have a little faith, won’t you?”

“We’ve got approximately two days to put our affairs in order. Perhaps we should all record a goodbye message to our loved ones on this device here,” Drax suggests, tapping the translator.

Peter contemplates his final will and testament. “I guess this will be my chance to tell Kraglin to wipe my personal hard drive without reviewing any of the data. It’s my dying request, so hopefully he won’t be a complete dick about it. History doesn’t need to know about my porn preferences.”

“Your porn preferences are boring and lacking in clearly-defined musculature,” Drax deadpans. At Peter’s incredulous stare, he continues, “Next time, do not label your porn repository _Aunt Martha’s Pie Recipes_. I wanted to make a mossberry pie, and there were just so many cream–“

“You didn’t have to look through all of them!” Peter interrupts before he can finish.

Gamora palms her face. “There’s no need to be morbid. If Rocket hasn’t given up, neither should we.”

Just then, Rocket whips past them, speeding along on all fours towards the backup generator, uncaring of whether the other Guardians see his animalistic gait. By the time they catch up to him, he’s already cracked open the generator, pulling out the wiring to view and potentially fiddle with the connections vital to their life-support systems.

“Rocket, stop!” Peter shouts, as he holds back the suicidal maniac. Rocket titters his annoyance as he struggles to break free when Drax steps in to grab his legs, preventing him from kicking Peter in the face. Gamora rushes forward to observe the damage to their generator.

“I am Groot.” _He figured it out._ Groot says, as he walks in with six masks and five compressed oxygen tanks with one carbon dioxide tank for himself.

“I am Groot.” _We don’t have enough power to fly for long, so we need to divert power from the oxygen converter to the thrusters as soon as possible to allow us one ten-second burn at a 47-23-86 angle from our current flight path. This should propel us to the Knowhere in three hours time._

He continues, “I am Groot.” _In the meantime, we need to breathe. I’ve rationed the remaining oxygen based on your basal usage as provided by old system readouts so we can all survive the journey._

Peter and Drax carefully release Rocket, who indignantly dusts off his jumpsuit.

“What if we don’t make it in time?” Mantis asks.

“I am Groot.” _It’s the only shot we got. Our external radial transmitter is completely shot, and we can’t go outside to fix it. So, we either sit here for another day or two, waiting for help from some random stranger who might not arrive, or we take a chance on rewiring the engines to alter our drift path and speed._

“If we’re even slightly off, we could miss Knowhere entirely. Rocket, are you sure you calculated the trajectory correctly to account for our current speed?” Gamora addresses him directly.

Rocket looks slightly insulted as he shakes his head in the affirmative.

That is good enough for the team.

Once they fasten on their designated oxygen masks, Rocket dismantles the life support system, stripping it for parts needed to restore the damaged electronics comprising the Milano’s steering and main thrusters. He splices the wires of their backup generator to power up the resulting patchwork engine as Peter pilots them in one short burst of energy in the calculated angle at the specified time. It goes off without a hitch.

Now, all they can do is wait.


	4. True Strength

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Guardians rely on each other in their darkest hour.

The Guardians huddle together, circled in the middle of the craft for warmth underneath every blanket and piece of clothing they can muster. They keep their conversation to a minimum and breathe slow, trying to conserve oxygen.

Despite their fight, Gamora curls into Peter, who wraps one arm around her while pressed up against Drax on his other side. Frigid temperatures and possible death had a way of bringing them together even as their issues remained unresolved.

“If we don’t make it…” Peter starts to say after what feels like hours later.

“I AM Groot.” _We’re going to make it._

“Right, but if we don’t… it’s been real, you know,” he says. “I love you guys.”

“You say that like we’re going to die,” Mantis points out quietly from the other side of Drax. She’s bundled up with only her face peeking out from within the blanket twisted around her body, reinforcing her already-strong resemblance to the Terran caterpillars Peter had liked to collect as a small child in Missouri.

Peter shrugs. “I just wanted you all to know that.”

“You’re going to be so embarrassed when we end up living,” Drax comments, fluffing out the blankets over his shoulders to cover more of his neck.

“Man, try to say something nice and heartfelt…” Peter knits his brow in frustration. “At the end of the day, we’re still just a bunch of assholes,” he grumbles.

“I am Groot.” _Speak for yourself._

“I love you, too. All of you.” Gamora says softly, snuggling deeper into Peter’s side, resting her head against his chest. She’s tired, sleepier than she has been in a long time. Despite the immediate danger, things have settled for the moment, and Peter is so warm wrapped around her. Perhaps it would be okay if she just nods off for a spell. She’ll wake up when they reach their destination, she thinks as she drifts off to a light sleep.

Rocket slaps her.

Peter immediately pushes him away, almost expelling him from the circle of warmth as Rocket tries to go for another attack. “Dude, what the fuck?” he yells, trying to shield Gamora from further assault. The remaining Guardians attempt to keep them apart as much as possible.

Undeterred, Rocket darts back in, dipping under Peter’s arm to shake Gamora by the shoulders. He titters in distress when she fails to stir.  

Mantis grasps hold of Gamora’s naked forearm. “There’s something wrong. She’s very far away.” There’s fear in eyes, and her voice sounds on the verge of tears.

Rocket dives to the left of Gamora to retrieve her compressed oxygen tank. He holds up the device, blinking red to warn of critically low levels. It was a simple, potentially-fatal error. His original calculations had accounted for their normal oxygen consumption as tracked by the Milano before the solar flare, but in the rush to execute his plan, he failed to consider Gamora’s nonfunctional cybernetics, the ones which optimized her oxygen use, leading him to rely on artificially low requirements when he finalized their rationing. The result: he had instructed Groot to underfill her tank.

Rocket panics. He made a mistake, and now Gamora may die for it.

Peter doesn’t hesitate. It’s an easy decision, one he’s made before and always will make. Because when it came down to him or Gamora, he will never fail to pick her. Every time. So, he pulls off her mask, ripping his own off to place over her nose and mouth. He won’t let her die, even if it costs him his own life. It reminds him of when they first met and he had offered her his own mask, choosing to expose himself to the void with only a razor-thin chance of rescue…

However, unlike that time so long ago, Peter has the Guardians.

Drax undoes the band holding his mask to his head. He takes a deep breath, and holds it over Peter’s face, allowing him to do the same. They pass it back and forth while Rocket recovers enough from his misstep to think. Drax is buying Peter time at the expense of himself. His tank can’t sustain both of them, and by using up the remaining oxygen twice as fast, neither will survive the remaining trip to Knowhere unless Rocket can figure out a way to make up the difference. He needs a plan. He needs more oxygen. He needs–

Rocket turns to Groot. Making eye contact with the boy, he points to his cheeks, puffing them out to indicate Groot should take a deep breath as well. Upon his audible inhalation, Rocket unlatches Groot’s hose from his carbon dioxide tank, placing it instead over the intake valve of Gamora’s oxygen tank before snapping her oxygen mask onto Peter.

Fauna inhales oxygen and exhales carbon dioxide while Flora does the reverse. It’s a symbiotic relationship as old as time.

Peter takes in a couple tentative breaths, giving Rocket a relieved thumbs-up when he doesn’t struggle to breathe.

 

* * *

 

“–stay with us, okay?” Mantis says softly as Gamora awakens. Hazy outlines sharpen into concerned faces looming over her. Peter is holding her close, rubbing soothing circles into her arm as she regains consciousness.

“I am Groot.” _Welcome back from the dead._

“That is in poor taste,” Drax admonishes the youth.

“I am Groot.” _I said welcome. Welcome is a nice word._

Gamora sits up, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. “What happened?”

“You were running low on oxygen,” Mantis explains, “You passed out.”

“Then how…”

“You aren’t leaving me that easy,” Peter murmurs, wrapping his arms around her to squeeze her tighter. She notes his tank is now attached to Groot’s mask next to him.

“That sounds vaguely threatening,” Drax deadpans.

Peter loosens his hold on Gamora. “Dude! We almost died, and–“

“It’s alright… I understand.” Gamora says, arms encircling his waist in a warm embrace.

 

* * *

 

When they enter Knowhere’s orbit, they are able to tap a short-range comm and flag down a passing freighter vessel to tow them to port for a nominal sum. _30,000 credits is highway robbery!_ Quill had complained when they received the chop-shop’s quote to fix the Milano. _Just pay the man,_ Gamora had replied. It wasn’t like they could take their business elsewhere at the moment, and besides, they needed to concentrate on fixing their cybernetics if they were to be a functional team. The internal translators were cheap, ubiquitous implants that could be purchased and installed by any half-way decent semi-physician who underwent a two-week course in intergalactic space outside the reach of the Nova Empire (or any recognized government, for that matter). Gamora couldn’t remember a time before she had hers installed, but Peter insisted his original one was implanted by the Eclector’s onboard “doctor,” who had been proficient in first aid, sewing, and animal butchery but little else. Ergo, their translators can be purchased and installed with little fanfare or trouble.

Rocket and Gamora’s other cybernetics are another story.

“I do not work on pets,” the burly Xandarian ‘surgeon’ states flatly. Kroner is the best on Knowhere, with the largest selection of cybernetics in stock and the hands of an angel, or so the whispers on the streets had said. If you want some top-notch work done, Kroner is your guy.

Unfortunately, he is also a Grade-A asshole.

He points to Rocket, who is catching a ride on Drax’s shoulders, having decided it would be less dehumanizing to be carried rather than forced to walk on all fours. Rocket snarls, ready to spring from his muscular perch to add to the man’s collection of facial scars. Drax manages to hold him back, but then the man continues, “If you want your dog to walk upright while balancing a ball on his nose, then take him to the vet, but don’t waste my time.”

“Excuse me?” Drax steps forward, only to be stopped by Gamora.

“Rocket is not our pet,” she says firmly, in a tone of voice the Guardians knew brook no argument.

“Yes, yes… Scruffles is not a pet.” Kroner dismisses her with a wave of his hand. “He’s part of the family. Like I haven’t heard that one before.”

“Listen, you bastard.” Gamora grabs that hand, pinching the pressure point between his thumb and forefinger. “Rocket is not a pet. He’s a person. A person and a good friend.”

She twists his arm around his back and presses her forearm against his elbow when he struggles, silently threatening to break it.

“Now you will point us a surgeon who _will_ help us.”

“Already told you, lady,” he grunts through the pain, still defiant. “The vet is on the intersection of Main Street and Suck-My-Dick Boulevard.”

Mantis flinches at the crunch of his snapped elbow. Kroner screams then, holding his limp, fractured arm at an angle completely incompatible with his species.

“Looks like we’re taking our business elsewhere,” Gamora says, walking past Peter to lead the rest of the Guardians out of Kroner’s shop. “This one’s broken.”

Drax follows shortly after, but pauses in front of Peter, who stands motionless staring after Gamora, having still not recovered from the scene.

“Ugh. Quill, this is not the time to allow your nether regions to engorge,” Drax says, openly eyeing the other man’s burgeoning erection. “While it was a titillating display, we are seeking medical aid for our dear friends.”

“Dude! I’m not _engorged_ ,” Peter whispers that last word, trying to adjust his stance to make his condition less prominent to the other man’s scrutiny.

“You misunderstand me, Quill,” Drax says, noting his friend’s discomfort at the topic. “I do not aim to inspire shame of your natural bodily functions. It is a healthy reaction to seeing your woman crush an adversary, but I am only saying that now is simply not the time for it.”

At Drax’s further explanation, Peter closes his eyes, his hand stroking the line of his brow, as he audibly exhales. “Thanks for the clarification, buddy. Now, I would really appreciate it if we can stop talking about this immediately.”

“You are right,” Drax agrees, patting Peter on the back. “We have spent far too long discussing your erection when we should be finding a less-discriminatory cybernetic surgeon for Rocket and Gamora.”

It takes them a while to track down another surgeon with the expertise to install their specialized cybernetics, but there is a small catch, a tiny hiccup in their plan.

“What do you mean you need another tension modulator?” Peter asks the fourth surgeon, an androgenous four-armed being named Seb, who is currently sorting through an entire wall of drawers containing various bits and parts, searching for the required cybernetics before placing them on a metal tray in front of the Guardians.

“You want to compress the strength of a Titan into a tiny package like that? You need a tension modulator. Now, I got one, and I can get another if you please, but delivery may take a while on account of the supply chain being a little short-handed,” Seb explains, chuckling at a private joke. Having collected everything minus one tension modulator, they stand in front of their new clients, their upper arms crossed over their chest while their fidgety lower set arrange the pile of cybernetics into two, one for each patient.

“Kroner had plenty of them before Gamora broke his arm,” Drax says blithely before Gamora can shush him.

Seb looks surprised. “That was you?”

At Gamora’s flat expression, Seb continues, “Tell ya what. Kroner ain’t going to sell it to me, so it’ll take a week to source the second one off-planet, but I’ll do it at cost. You just pay for parts.”

“…Why would you do that?” Gamora asks, still suspicious.

Seb shrugs their twin pairs of shoulders. “The guy’s a stuck-up jackass. What he got was a long time coming. Besides, with him out of commission for the time being, business will pick up. Just don’t tell no one it was me what helped you, yeah?”

“Deal,” Gamora holds out her hand for a shake, which Seb encompasses in their two right hands.

“So… which one of you is going first?”

 

* * *

 

Rocket sits at the table on the repaired Milano, hunched over his latest project: Groot’s handheld gaming device. To his left are an assortment of new wires, transistors, and various other parts. To his right and behind are piles of small electronics still requiring repair. They’ll be orbiting Knowhere for the next week, and Rocket could never sit still. It made him antsy.

Gamora enters. “How’s it going?”

Rocket scoots over to make room for her on the bench. She accepts the offered seat.

“Fixing Groot’s gaming device? That should make him happy,” she comments, glancing over at his work.

“Yeah well… after everything that happened, I figured the kid earned it,” Rocket replies.

Gamora hums in agreement. She passes him a glass of water.

“It’s been five hours since the last dose,” she says. “You should take your pills.”

Rocket reaches into his jumpsuit pocket, extracting small bottles of antibiotics and quick-tack to promote fast healing. He throws back the pills, washing them down with the glass of water.

“You should set a timer on that,” Gamora suggests. “It’s easy to lose track of time when you’re busy.”

He simply grunts in response, but he does set a recurring alarm on his chronometer to remind him.

They sit in silence before Gamora attempts another tract of conversation. “Your translator is working well, but I guess that was the easy part.”

“The translator was never a problem for me,” Rocket says, as he reaches for a soldering gun. “Well, not the main problem.”

“How do you mean?”

“You’ve heard my native language. My original larynx ain’t built to make the sounds you humies can, but what you don’t know is that it ain’t the language I’m speaking when I talk regular, and it ain’t what I hear when others talk to me,” he explains. “The translator chip would never work if that were the case, which is why Seb had to install one special.”

“So, what language are you speaking right now?” Gamora peers over the messy heaps of gadgets at Rocket’s workstation. He has a lot to repair. It should keep him busy and out of trouble for a while.

“Intergalactic Standard. Same as those bastards that made me,” Rocket replies, casually, still tinkering with the wiring of Groot’s gaming system. “Same as you.”

She is momentarily stunned into silence. She clears her throat, then: “So… the entire time, you’ve understood exactly what I’ve been saying?”

Rocket shrugs. “You and Groot, yeah, but none of you could understand me.”

“So… that time in the cockpit…” she lets the unasked question hang between them.

Rocket scratches the fresh skin stretched over his new translator implanted near his ear. “Look, the cybernetics… they’re a tool. Don’t get me wrong. They’re an extremely useful tool, but they ain’t the only reason you survived as long as you have. They don’t make you, you,” he muses, reaching for a screwdriver to close up the handheld device. “You’re strong, Gamora, cybernetics or no cybernetics.”

“Thank you, Rocket.”

“And don’t worry about Quill,” he continues, “He may be a little slow, kind of dopey… moronic, actually… and a bit annoying and–“

“Where is this going?” Gamora interrupts him. Rocket could wax poetic about Peter’s faults for hours and she’d rather get to the point, if one was to be had.

“Hm? Um yeah, well... Despite his many _many_ deficiencies, he has a big heart, and he’s real sweet on you. So he don’t understand all the time, but he tries.” Rocket sifts through a pile of gadgets he is in the process of repairing. Once he finds it, he passes the cone of silence to Gamora. “Do us all a favor, and take this when you talk to him. In fact, just turn it on and stick it under your bed before he comes in.”

“You fixed this first?”

He shrugs. “Not hearing you boning Quill seemed like the most immediate need for the team. Priorities and all.”

 

* * *

 

Gamora is waiting in their room when Peter knocks later to alert her before sliding open the door.

“Rocket says he’ll fix my Zune, so… I’m just going to get it and then get out of your hair for the night, okay?” He says, skirting the perimeter of the room towards his sound system, painfully aware of the layout of the room to prevent boxing her in with no access to the door.

Gamora’s voice is even, calm. “You aren’t staying here?”

“Naw, I’ll just bed down with Drax or something until after you’ve had a chance to replace your cybernetics.”

“That will take a week.”

“It’s no problem,” he insists, his tone carefully casual. “Hell, I used to sleep in a janitorial closet on the Eclector in a pinch.”

“Drax snores.”

“I’ll get earplugs,” he counters.

Gamora rolls her eyes. “Peter, I’m not displacing you for that long. That’s ridiculous.”

“Well, then what do you suggest?”

“Stay here,” Gamora says firmly, reaching out to him to capture his wrist. “With me,” she clarifies.

The last thing Peter wants to do is to make Gamora uncomfortable. To have her shy away from him, unable to relax in his presence, might taint what they have now, the repercussions of that choice reverberating into the future. Could they continue as they were, both knowing Gamora could never trust him deep down, the way he trusted her?

Then again… Gamora is the one suggesting he stay, and Peter always had trouble denying her anything, especially if it was something he wanted as well. So, mentally-earmarking the potential consequences of this course of action as future-Peter’s problem, he slides the door closed behind him.

“…Alright.”

 

* * *

 

They lie inches apart side-by-side in bed, both quiet, neither asleep.

“Hey Gamora, you still awake?” Peter whispers into the dark, low enough to not wake her if his assumption proves incorrect.

Gamora rolls over to face him. Her hand hesitates before lightly brushing against his cheek.

“Yeah, me too,” he says. He’s silent for a moment, then: “Are we going to be okay?”

“Of course, Peter,” she replies as her hand slips lower to rest on his hip. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” He doesn’t reach out to touch her, lying motionless, one arm curled under his pillow while the other lies limp in front of him. “You don’t have to force yourself, you know. It’s okay if you need space.”

“I’m not forcing myself to do anything.” She’s okay with this, she tells herself, perfectly fine in fact, as long as Peter doesn’t try to hold on to her, that is. “I love you so very much, Peter, and I trust you, more than anyone. It’s just… this wariness, it doesn’t go away overnight. It’s a process, learning how to be vulnerable again after so long.”

“…I can wait.”

“I’m sorry, Peter,” she says, her voice cracking. “I’m so sorry.” And she is. He deserves more, someone who can give him so much more than she can, someone who isn’t broken.

“Hey, now… you have nothing to apologize for,” he says softly. The back of his fingers ghost over her hand on his hip, just a light glancing touch that travels up her arm to her shoulder without grasping. “I’m just so lucky to have you.”

Gamora lunges forward, her lips find his as she holds him close. Peter brings one hand to her waist, tentatively soothing the skin there as he gauges her reaction. When she doesn’t flinch at the contact, he leaves it there, not wanting to risk doing more.

She rolls him onto his back, mounting him from above to gently press him into the mattress as she tangles her tongue with his. When her hands slide down to cup his growing erection over his pants before travelling upwards to slip under his shirt, wandering up towards his pectorals to bunch up his clothing, Peter breaks the kiss.

“Gamora… are you sure you want to…”

“Just… let me take the lead, okay?” She murmurs into his ear. She can feel him suck in a shaky breath then nod his consent.

Gamora runs her hands up his raised arms, taking Peter’s shirt up and over his head, tying the cloth into a knot around a support beam at the head of the bed to hold his wrists together. She tests the knot.

It holds.

“You can tell me to stop at any time,” she tells him. Control, not pain, is her goal in this.

Peter nods his head again in acknowledgement.

Because he understands now. The sexual positions and accoutrements may have changed, evolved as it were over the course of their relationship, but this is no different from the other times they’ve made love. This is what Gamora needs to feel safe, what she has always needed.

And Peter will do anything for her.

Having sufficiently trussed him to her satisfaction, Gamora removes his pants, slipping them down to reveal his stiffened member standing tall, eager to please. She undresses then climbs on top of him, her thighs splayed on either side of his torso. She dips down to kiss him, her mouth trailing along his jawline as she reaches behind herself to stroke his dick.

When Gamora lowers herself down onto his erection, Peter gasps, her name whispered like a mantra as she rides him. She reaches down to massage her clit, her knuckles occasionally glancing against him as she concentrates on the stretch of him inside her and the rub of her fingers. As her orgasm builds and breaks, she clenches around him, her legs, her hand, her cunt. She doesn’t have to stifle back natural reaction, knowing her temporarily-reduced strength meant she couldn’t crush him.

Gamora dismounts him, but he’s still hard, still watching her as she dips two fingers into her still-wet passage to coat them in her own natural lubrication, withdrawing them and testing the viscosity and glide of it against her thumb. She looks to his face as she pushes those same fingers into his asshole, delighting in the way it made him whine and his eyes roll back. Peter pulls on the knot lashing his hands together, scrambling up to shift into a curled seated position, his ass still exposed to her probing fingers. She kisses him then, sandwiching him between her body and the cold wall behind him as she continues her shallow thrusts. He comes shortly after, his white sticky cum dripping from her breasts down to pool at his abdomen. She reaches up to untie him, and he uses his mangled shirt to wipe the majority of the mess from their bodies.

After tossing the evidence away to be dealt with later, Peter snuggles up against Gamora. They hold each other tight, his arms entwined with her’s, embracing as if the other is the last, most precious thing left to them. The next words spoken are simple, transmitted speech to translator to ear, a hundred times before, but Gamora can feel their truth in her bones.

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One of my favorite things about GotG is that although all of them are originally loners, they generally defeat the main villain through the power of friendship. 
> 
> Also, I don’t usually write explicit smut and have no excuse for that last scene, only that I love mirroring beginning and ending scenes, like bookends. Anyways, this is the end, people. If you enjoyed this fic, consider dropping me a comment letting me know :).


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